


One of those Nice Things

by titanialioness



Category: The Guild Codex: Demonized - Annette Marie
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Just a sweet moment, Zylas POV, takes place early/mid book 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:13:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24278665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titanialioness/pseuds/titanialioness
Summary: Robin always said there were benefits to doing nice things for people. Zylas decides to try it for himself.
Relationships: Robin Page/Zylas et Vh'alyir
Comments: 12
Kudos: 63





	One of those Nice Things

Zylas sat in the darkness, watching his prey.

Small, weak. Helpless. Completely unaware that he was stalking her from the shadows, completely oblivious to how he could kill her before she even looked up.

No, she was not _dr_ _ā_ _dah ahktallis_ , despite all his best attempts. Not yet. But she would learn.

His _vayanin_ had been hunched over the grimoire for hours, long after the sunlight had faded and the night had grown cold. Zylas did not go out. He sat next to his piece-matching game and watched, lulled into calm by the steady scratch of her pencil and the occasional mutter of her lips. Every few minutes she would lean to her computer and tap a few keys, then pick up her pencil and continue writing.

Trapped inside the infernus, he rarely had the opportunity to observe Robin—physically, at least. Her motions, her body language. The sharp focus in her eyes, the determined set of her jaw. The way she lit up with every successfully translated passage.

The realization hit him, then.

He had been wrong. In these moments, she was not prey. She could not face vampires or demons alone, but she was a hunter in her own right. A hunter of knowledge. The grimoire was her opponent, and although she had said this battle could last many years, in the end she would win. _Dh'ērrenith_.

Zylas snapped to attention as Robin set down her pencil. Her eyes squeezed closed and she pressed her hands to her temples, moving her fingers in slow, deliberate motions against the skin as if to massage out an ache. She stretched her neck side to side, her fingers shifting to massage at the base of her skull as well. She did not notice his piercing gaze on her.

She was aching. Tired and sore, muscles protesting like his did after every battle. His gaze snagged on her sagging eyelids, her drooping head. He thought maybe she would stop and rest, as she sometimes did after so many hours of focus, but she simply picked up her pencil again and went back to work.

"It is late, _na_ _?_ " he asked, breaking the silence.

Robin startled like prey, her back shooting straight and her bloodshot blue eyes wide as her head jolted to look at him. Then she glanced at the phone, half buried among the sheets and books scattered around the coffee table. "Oh," she said. "It's 2 already? Really?"

"Sleep. Rest for tomorrow."

Sighing, she looked back at the clutter of paper around her. "I'm almost done with this passage. Just another half hour, then I'll stop."

Something strange twisted in Zylas's chest. Something heavy and uncomfortable. It should not have bothered him. Robin had promised to do her best to get him home. Staying up long after her normal human bedtime surely fit that promise of doing "her best." If anything, he should have expected such commitment every night.

She had always been like this—one to push relentlessly, to never back down to a challenge. Stubborn. Even if it caused her pain or discomfort, she put others before herself almost to a fault. _Selfless_. An unfamiliar concept in his home world.

Dozens of moments flitted through his steel-trap memory. After joining Grand Grimoire, stopping the other _hh'ainun_ 's knife with her own hand before it could cut his cheek any deeper. In the hotel room with Amalia, offering up her prized _sweet and sour_ for the noodles Zylas had touched and ruined. Flinging herself between him and Darius and calling him a _partner_. Sacrificing her mother's grimoire to spare his life from Vasilii. Covering him in warm blankets even when his life was no longer at risk. 

And just the other day, handing him apple slices from her own breakfast, smothered generously in peanut butter.

 _"I'm giving you food because you enjoy it,"_ she had said, truth ringing in every syllable. She had done it to bring him pleasure. Nothing more.

Perhaps these _nice things_ were part of a much larger plan to manipulate him and lower his guard. But even before their contract, she had been like this. She had snuck into her uncle's library time and time again, despite firm warnings against it. Sometimes seeking knowledge for herself, yes, but also…

Also for him. When he was weakest, when he was most desperate. When he could offer nothing in return but answers to her endless, _zh'_ _ūltis_ questions. On the day he was sure he would die, on the day he had touched her soft, fragile skin for the first time.

_She had hesitated. And then, holding up the mug, "I … brought this."_

He wondered about that hesitation. He knew now that the drink had been _hot chocolate_. He had watched Robin and Amalia prepare it in the kitchen many times. They enjoyed it, especially on the coldest days. Thinking back, he suspected Robin had prepared the drink for herself on that cold morning. But instead, she had offered it to him.

_"You don't have to drink it if you don't want to, but it's hot," she had said._

And it had been. He had watched the mug, hungry and desperate, through his _infrared thermal radiation sensing_ from the moment she entered. He had devoured it, heat and all, before she could snatch it back.

_"What do you want?" he had asked, exhausted but determined not to owe anything to a hh'ainun._

_"What do you mean?"_

_"For that."_

_Surely her life-saving drink would come at a cost. Nothing came for free. This was the way of things._

_"I don't need anything."_

A nice thing. Yes, from the beginning, she had offered him a nice thing. And in return, he had yanked her into the summoning circle and threatened to taste her blood.

In one smooth movement, Zylas stood. Robin, too engrossed in her project, did not look up as he strode into the kitchen and fished out the box of hot chocolate from its place on the shelf. As he had seen the girls do many times, he filled a mug with water and placed it in the _microwave_ —a _hh'ainun_ device he found to be more unnerving than the _television_.

He had memorized the precise order of buttons Robin always tapped in when preparing her own hot drink. It was slightly different than Amalia's order. Although he could not read them, he knew the button formula controlled temperature. Robin's drink always emerged from the microwave hotter than Amalia's.

When the heating was complete, he carefully tore open a packet and dumped it into the water. The rich aroma of chocolate filled the air, and he stirred until the liquid was smooth, deep brown. Remembering the white dollop of sweetness Robin had included in her offered hot chocolate all those months ago, he found a familiar white and red can in the fridge. It took a moment of messy experimentation to master the strange white nozzle, but then the drink was complete.

He inspected his work. Frowning, he added a bit more of the sweet _whip cream_. Then he nodded, certain it was just as she preferred.

Zylas lifted the mug from the counter. The heat against his fingers felt glorious. He was tempted to soak it in, absorb it for himself. But he did not.

" _Vayanin,_ " he crooned, heading back into the living room. Robin's tired eyes lifted as he set the mug on the table beside her.

"What's this?" Robin glanced between Zylas and the mug before settling her gaze on him. "For me?"

" _Var_."

She looked back at the steaming mug, brow furrowed as it did when she was stymied by a particularly challenging grimoire page. "What do you want?" she asked. Not harsh, but a genuine question. She was remembering their first days of interaction when she had brought him food in exchange for answers.

"I do not need anything."

"Then why…?"

"You enjoy this warm drink, _na?_ It is for you to enjoy, nothing more."

She blinked again, letting his words sink in. Then, as he watched, her face lit up. Something soft and warm filled her eyes and she smiled, brilliant as _vayanin_. "Really?"

His heart flopped and sped up, exhilarated as if he had just defeated a great enemy. A grin tugged across his lips. To bring Robin happiness like this… yes, that was all he wanted in return.

"It is… how do you call it?" He tapped on his chin with one finger, as if trying to remember the words he'd mulled over ever since Robin first explained it. "It is one of those 'nice things' you keep telling me about."

  
  
  



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